Midnight Club 3: Online Impressions

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One last look before release, and this time we're focused on the network play.

By Jeremy Dunham

With Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition less than a week away, the fine folks from Rockstar Games dropped by the IGN office to deliver the final build. More importantly, though, the reps took the opportunity to show us first hand the extensive online capabilities for both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions, and it left us quite impressed. In fact, Midnight Club 3 plays so smoothly when it was hooked up for online play that it was hard to tell that we were even connected at all -- it was that lag free.

To be fair, though, we were playing on a server that didn't have thousands of players battling it out all at once, so whether or not that's reflective of the final product is still unknown. Nonetheless, the game still ran a lot better than most other pre-release online racers that I've played before, and that's definitely a good sign.

As for the online-capable features themselves, they're actually pretty extensive. Supporting up to eight players simultaneously in both versions of the game, Midnight Club 3 has a truckload of options, stats, and bonuses. It's all tied into the single-player campaign too, so while anyone can hop online and play anytime they want, their car and mode selections will only be limited to what they've unlocked. For lazy folk that only want to play online, however, they needn't worry -- they can still play any mode in the game as long as the server host has already unlocked it himself.

Interestingly enough, the PlayStation 2 version of Midnight Club 3 supports more stat tracking features than its Xbox counterpart. To be more specific, the PS2 edition allows players to view their personal stats and see how they rank within each individual category against other online users. The Xbox version doesn't support this ability, however, because of its well-known stat server restrictions. Regardless of the personalization differences, though, both versions of the game still support plenty of helpful data. The number of wins, hours played, hours cruising, and miles driven are just a few of the figures available (while other categories include the number of races started, races completed, logins, flags returned, stolen, and highest tag score). There's even a "best time" tracker for each and every race. That's pretty extensive.

Want high speed online? You got it!

This robust stat tracking is further supported by an easy to use (and intuitive) matching tool that allows players to find exactly the kind of opponents they want. It wasn't active in the build we played (because nobody was online yet and we already knew where our opponents were anyway) but with the number of filters it offered, seems to be pretty flexible. And while we're on the subject, we also confirmed that matchmaking is not determined by stats or rank at all -- so masters can continue to whip newbie ass as long as they see fit.

Luckily players can form online clubs to help skew the types of opponents and buddies they can ride with and there's no limit to how big one of these clubs can get. This means that if you want to create a legion of elite road masters or an army of awful amateurs, you can do so. The one caveat is that users can only join one club at a time, so they'll have to choose their team (and their friends) rather wisely.

One aspect of the club system that I really like is the ability to earn ranks and privileges from within a single club (the higher your rank, the more you can do). As an example, players can start off as a pledge so that they can prove themselves to other members without having a direct membership. Once they've earned a spot on the team and become a full-fledged member, however, they'll gain the ability to invite new pledges to the roster. Continued success afterwards will then promote them to the rank of Officer, and that's where some of the more interesting privileges come in. As an officer, users can invite other members without needing them to be pledges first and they can also remove and promote pledges if they like. Of course, the ultimate goal is to become an Owner. As an owner, players can easily promote and demote any of the racers below them into any other rank they want. And in a special bonus for Xbox users, can transfer ownership to someone else if they want to move on.